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We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

dprovine (140134) writes "According to a joint investigation by series of articles in The Washington Post and
60 Minutes, a forensic test used by the FBI for decades is known to be invalid. The National Academy of Science issued a report in
2004 that FBI investigators had given "problematic" testimony to juries. The FBI later
stopped using "bullet lead analysis", but sent a letter to law enforcement officials
saying that they still fully supported the science behind it. Hundreds of criminal
defendants — some already convicted in part on the testimony of FBI experts — were
not informed about the problems with the evidence used against them in court.
Does anyone at the Justice Department even care about what effect this will have on
how the public in general (and juries in particular) regards the trustworthiness of
FBI testimony?"

Shifty Jim writes "According to a recent article at Space.com a black hole cluster may be the source of a massive cloud millions of light years in size. From the article:
'A giant cloud of superheated gas 6 million light years wide might be formed by the collective sigh of several supermassive black holes, scientists say. The plasma cloud, detailed in April 10 issue of Astrophysical Journal, might be the source of mysterious cosmic rays that permeate our universe....
The plasma cloud is located about 300 million light years away near the Coma Cluster and is spread across a vast region of space thought to contain several galaxies with supermassive black holes, or active galactic nuclei (AGN), embedded at their centers.'"

Shane Macaulay and Dino Dai Zovi, a software engineer and security researcher taking part in the brilliantly named "PWN to Own" Hack-a-Mac contest at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver, managed to hack into and take control of a MacBook by finding a security exploit that takes advantage of an open Safari browser window. Shane and his teammate Dino won the prize of a brand new MacBook -- presumably loaded with Firefox or some other browser variant -- for managing to find the hole on the second and final day of the contest. The hack wasn't exactly a breeze, since the pair admitted to a total of 9 hours in order to find and exploit the weakness. Apple has patched OS X four times over the last year to fix dozens of security updates, and only regurgitated the corporate line when asked for comment on this particular vulnerability. ("Apple takes security very seriously", well duh!) Even with the recent arousal of interest in Mac OS security, the world has yet to see any kind of exploit released into the wild world web; when / if one does, we'd probably expect the most damaging exploit to use good ol' social engineering rather than a complicated hack like this. Still, Mac users should take some form of satisfaction from knowing that the issue of Mac security is being investigated, rather than being taken for granted.

liquidzero4 writes "Earlier this week, Microsoft patched in another of their regular backwards compatibility updates. This one is fairly important; not only does it add a number of titles to the official back-compat list but several of the new old games are fairly popular. The likes of Panzer Dragoon ORTA, Jet Set Radio Future, Mercenaries, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Soul Calibur 2, and Star Wars Republic Commando are sure to make some 360 owners happy."

Comment While doing the research for the very first issue of Faultline, one IPTV specialist (who shall remain nameless) told us "you can't send video across the web", and proceeded to lecture us on the finer points of Quality of Service protocols.

eldavojohn writes "The shots you take in CONE Sutro Forest don't come from shotguns or sniper rifles. In the game, players manipulate remote control cameras, taking pictures of birds and classifying them. It starts next week with the premise being that the more birds you take pictures of and classify correctly, the more points you get. It's more of an experiment in collaborative technology than a game ... but if you can get your users to do work for you and have fun at the same time, you might have something big."

Flying Haggis (732573) writes "I am a maths teacher (ages 11-18 to avoid confusion between US and UK systems). I will soon be given an interactive/electronic whiteboard and projector but I am a bit baffled about brand and software. My concern comes in that if I develop resources for one board then they may well not work on the other (main) brand if/when i swap to another school. To summarise:Brand "S": will run multi-platform (inc Linux) but only on proprietary boardsBrand "P": software can be licensed for other boards but is not multi-platform"P" would seem like a winner — at least until we take the department down a Linux thin-client route...This is obviously a problem that many of you face in your fields as well when evaluating software. Question is, does anyone know of an open environment for classroom IWB use — or even a "closed" one that supports the main file formats?"

msmiffy writes "BBC News reports that a Tasmanian paper company is offering tourists — and others — paper made from kangaroo and wallaby dung. It is nice to see companies "going through the motions" to produce a green and sustainable product.

This may be old news for some, as the article reports that it is already being done in Africa using the end-product of elephants and in Scandinavia with post-elk fibres."

nagora (177841) writes "The BBC is reporting that next week's UK music chart may have the first sign of the end of the recording industry as we know it. From this week (7th Jan, 2006), all downloaded music sales are counted in the official UK chart, not just tracks which have had a physical media release. Now, a group of unsigned kids is poised to enter the top 40 without any old-world recording, distribution, or production deals. Koopa have their own web site, and of course their own My Space home.

But they're not acting on principle; band member Joe Murphy says "If someone comes along and gives us an offer, we'll talk to them." before continuing on to add the words the recording industry has been having nightmares about since the introduction of the mp3 format: "If we can get enough exposure and get in the top 40 by the end of the week, do we necessarily need a large label? Probably nowadays, no you don't." Is this finally the crack in the dam we've all been waiting for to wash away the entrenched monopolies of 20th century music production? Or just a sell-out waiting to happen?"

Scarblac writes "Swedish political party Pirate Byran (Bureau of Piracy) and torrent siteThe Pirate Bay today launched a campaign to force the swedish ISP Perspektiv Bredband to resume connectivity to the net and stop blocking their users access to the Russian music site allofmp3.com. Perspektiv notes in its own press release that their blocking of allofmp3 is a moral move, not a legal one, since allofmp3 is legal in Sweden. The Pirate Bay want to put pressure on them to stop censorship and hopes others will join their campaign."

silentounce writes "A blog over at Wired reports on an old article from 2005. Apparently, the Israeli military is discriminatory of D&Ders. Being a gamer can exclued you from certain positions and hurt your career. Even though it's old news, it's still quite amusing.

From the article:'"These people have a tendency to be influenced by external factors which could cloud their judgment," a military official says. "They may be detached from reality or have a weak personality — elements which lower a person's security clearance, allowing them to serve in the army, but not in sensitive positions."'Also, 'exposing soldiers who play the game could result in the soldiers being sent to a military psychologist or even being kicked out of the army.'

So, if you're an Israeli, and want to avoid military service, I've got a PBEM game you can join."